The film "Iron Man" inspired the developers to design a suit that would be suitable for jumping from space. The suit of the future or exoskeleton for jumping from space has received the designation RL MARK VI, it is being created by the developers of Solar System Express and biotechnology from Juxtopia LLC. This costume will be similar to the costume of the famous iron man. The suit is supposed to be equipped with gyroscopes, augmented reality goggles, control gloves and even a jetpack. At the same time, the production model of the novelty is expected to be released by 2016.
The idea of creating this exoskeleton was inspired by the fantastic films Iron Man and Star Trek. It is assumed that this suit will be able to lift a person 100 km. above the surface of the Earth and then smoothly lower to the ground without using a parachute. The designers of the spacesuit set the height of 100 km as the top bar for a reason, this height is called the Karman line, which is considered the border between open space and the earth's atmosphere. At the same time, jumping from such a height is a task of enormous complexity. Initially, a cosmic vacuum will act on a person, and then he will enter the earth's atmosphere and will be in a state of free fall for quite a long time.
Science fiction is not the first time that it has inspired engineers to create the technology of the future. For example, in the 2009 film Star Trek, there is a scene in which the captain of the spacecraft James Kirk, engineer Olson and the helmsman Hikaru Sulu descend to the surface of the planet Vulcan in high-tech suits, and the landing takes place with the deployment of the parachute. In the Iron Man trilogy, Tony Stark's costumes take center stage in the story. The main components of his exoskeletons are repulsors (anti-gravity engines) in gloves and jet engines in boots. At the same time, the helmet in this suit has a display with an indicator on the windshield. In addition, the hero can use voice control to control all available systems.
To implement these ideas in practice, it is necessary to solve a large number of different problems. Think over how the suit will protect a person from sudden changes in temperature and pressure, solve the problem of supplying oxygen, think over how to withstand hypersonic and supersonic shock waves. There are a lot of risks at such an impressive altitude: an athlete may experience air emphysema, decompression sickness or ebullism (boiling of fluid in the body at low atmospheric pressure). In the event that the suit is damaged, the person may be left without protection and oxygen.
In addition, the developed suit must withstand hypersonic and supersonic shock waves. The overload experienced will also play an important role. The moment an athlete moves from a thin atmosphere to its denser layers, he will experience positive and negative overloads from 2g to 8g. And this can cause serious problems and failure of the entire system. An athlete, on the other hand, from such overloads may experience loss of consciousness or hemorrhage.
According to representatives of Solar System Express, the new spacesuit, called the RL MARK VI, will allow the athlete to jump from near space, suborbital space and even from low Earth orbit. The RL in the suit is an acronym for Major Robert Lawrence, who was the first African American astronaut to die on December 8, 1967, during test flights at Edwards Air Force Base.
To test its development, Solar System Express is planning a jump similar to the Red Bull Stratos project. The first tests are planned to be carried out at a relatively low altitude, using a parachute landing, but the manufacturer's goals are much more ambitious. With the help of specialized boots with miniature motors and wing-suit technology, the athlete will have to smoothly land in an upright position.
At the same time, Juxtopia engineers are working on an augmented reality glasses project. The principle of operation of these glasses should be similar to the technology of displaying information on the windshield of modern fighters, when all the data necessary for the pilot is displayed on the inner surface of the helmet, pilot's goggles or directly on the glass of the cockpit canopy. Juxtopia's augmented reality glasses will provide the athlete with all the vital information they need to control the situation. They will tell you about the temperature of the environment and the body, heart rate, pressure and show a lot of other useful information. In addition, the "jumper" will know his location in space, see the change in flight speed, and will also be able to constantly keep in touch with stations on the ground. The system includes cameras, voice control and ambient lighting.
At the same time, gyroscopic boots should become the most high-tech thing in the new miracle suit. It is assumed that they will solve several problems at once. First, at an altitude of 100 km. above sea level, aerodynamic forces will not act on the athlete's body, for this reason it will be very difficult to stabilize the flight. At the same time, the gyroscopes built into the boots will help stabilize the position of the spacesuit in space and will help the athlete maintain an optimal position when crossing the border of the thermosphere and stratopause. With their help, it is planned to implement a safety system called "flat spin compensator", which will turn on if the "jumper" loses control over the position in space for more than 5 seconds.
One of the main functions of the gyroscopic boots should be the soft landing of the athlete. It is assumed that they will "turn on" when a person has almost reached the earth's surface. At this point, miniature nozzles will release jets of gas for a safe and smooth landing. The controller of the gyroscopic boots, as well as the mini-motors built into them, will be located on the control gloves, which is designed to provide ease of access to the system.
It is also planned to implement another trick - the Gravity Development Board, which is an integral part of the suit being developed. This board will act as the main interface for managing the entire system. According to the technical director of Solar System Express, this development will be the first system of its kind that will be suitable for use in space and that can surpass the Arduino Uno in functionality. It is assumed that the first tests of the miracle costume will take place in July 2016, so there is not much time left to wait for the fantasy to come true.
The most outstanding jump so far
At this point in time, the most outstanding jump in history was made by Felix Baumgartner (Red Bull Stratos), who simultaneously set 2 world records at once: the first in the world made a jump from the stratosphere (height 39 km), and also became the first person who overcame sound speed. Naturally, without the presence of special equipment, his jump would have been impossible. Felix wore a special suit that was actually a variation on NASA's most advanced spacesuit. This spacesuit protected the brave jumper from sudden changes in temperature (during the jump, the air temperature varied from -68 to 38 degrees Celsius) and pressure, as well as a large number of other dangers.
Never before have such suits, capable of withstanding extremely high pressures and at the same time carrying out a controlled fall process, have been developed. The created costume consisted of 4 layers. The outer layer of the suit consisted of a flame retardant material called Nomex. Under this layer was a device that held the bubble, which was filled with gas. The inner layer of the suit was a breathable liner. As soon as the pressure increased, the suit acquired the rigidity it needed. At the same time, the design of the suit was supposed to provide a person with a strictly vertical fall, head down. This was crucial to avoid going into a flat tailspin.
One of the most important tasks of the suit was to adjust the pressure. It was necessary to regulate the pressure in order to avoid the occurrence of hypoxia, decompression sickness, tissue damage - i.e. those risks associated with sudden changes in atmospheric pressure. During the free fall, Felix Baumgartner breathed pure oxygen, and a constant pressure of 3.5 bar was maintained in his spacesuit. As the vapor of the diaphragms and the aneroid valve dropped, the pressure in the suit was internally regulated. At that moment, when the parachutist dropped below 10 km, the pressure in the suit began to drop, which ensured greater mobility.
The suit's technological center was the armored breastplate. It included a high-resolution video camera with a 120-degree wide-angle view, a voice receiver and transmitter, a hydrostabilizer that reported angle and height, an accelerometer, and a dual set of lithium-ion batteries.
The parachutist's face was protected with a special plastic shield. At the time of the parachutist's exit from the capsule, the temperature overboard should have been about -25⁰С. In a few minutes of free flight, the air temperature will more than halve. In order to prevent the plastic shield from fogging up from the inside of the parachutist's breath, it was equipped with 110 thinnest wires, which were responsible for heating its entire surface.
The parachute system of this suit consisted of 3 parachutes: a parachute-braking unit, a main parachute and a reserve parachute. At the same time, the last two were ordinary parachutes, which were increased 2.5 times to provide additional stability. In Baumgartner's suit, 4 handles of the locking device were provided at once: 2 red and 2 yellow. The red handle, located on the right side of the chest, released the main parachute and threw out the brake parachute, the yellow handles on the right thigh unhook the main parachute so that the reserve parachute could deploy without entanglement. In case the parachutist fell into a tailspin and could not reach the handle, he could release the brake parachute by pressing the ring locking device located on the left index finger of the suit.
Felix Baumgartner and his team did not hide the fact that jumping from the stratosphere in itself is a very big and important achievement. But at the same time, the main goal of the jump was precisely to test the latest development of NASA.
